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Posted January 27, 2014 03:17 pm - Updated January 27, 2014 03:22 pm

Science Journal: New findings on skin color; Europeans had dark skin

The science journal Nature is reporting some interesting findings about skin color: Namely, it's not as old a development as previously thought. Europeans had darker skin as recently as 7,000 years ago, scientists now say.

But what caused the change? Scientists had believed that sunlight alone was the cause, in that light skin evolved because of lower light conditions in Europe compared to Africa.

Now scientists point to a change in diet for early Europeans as a bigger factor.

"The cereal-rich diet of Neolithic farmers lacked vitamin D, so Europeans rapidly lost their dark-skin pigmentation only once they switched to agriculture, because it was only at that point that they had to synthesize vitamin D from the sun more readily."

The conclusion is that lighter skin didn't develop 40,000 years ago, but rather about 7,000.